The long, slow death of the rule of law.

[Lucille]

The rule of man.

http://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/C...ay-links-dump/

...What’s truly unsettling is that it has been widely taken as read among both the media and the general public that Mrs. Clinton will likely avoid serious legal consequences for her behavior because the Justice Department is ultimately answerable to President Obama – and Democrats will not use the instruments of government to destroy one of their own. Whether that eventually proves true, the sentiment itself reveals a troubling trend in American politics.

While it’s far from unheard of for public officials to apply less-exacting standards to their partisan allies, it’s unnerving that the segments of society charged with keeping those officials in check – namely, the media and the voters – now regard such lack of principle as so unremarkable that it barely merits mention. We have transformed into a country in which it’s difficult to imagine precisely what kind of official malfeasance would be met with more than a shrug of the shoulders.

While this trend has been at work for decades – you can thank both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton for hastening the decline – it has reached escape velocity during the Obama years. The Justice Department, for example, already took a pass on prosecuting Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the scandal in which conservative groups were singled out for special scrutiny by the federal government on the basis of their political beliefs. If there’s anything that ought to be a matter of consensus in American politics, it’s that holding the reins of power doesn’t give you carte blanche to turn the power of the state against your partisan rivals. Yet Ms. Lerner, having done that very thing, doesn’t seem to be much worse for the wear.
[...]
That’s the organizing precept of this era in American politics: The rules apply until they put those in power at a disadvantage. Because we’ve arrived at this point incrementally, perhaps we’re not conscious of how sweeping the transformation is. So let’s be clear about what’s at stake: This is a wholesale abandonment of the foundational American principle of the rule of law.

There are only two options available here: Either the country returns to a form of government bound by the strictures of the Constitution and its subordinate laws or we give up the ghost and accept the fact that our politics are now entirely about power rather than principle – that we live in a nation where the president, whether his name is Obama or Trump, is limited only by the boundaries of imagination.

There are a lot of ways to describe that form of government. “Constitutional republic” isn’t one of them.

I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny. If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer: the genius of the whole system; the nature of just and constitutional laws; and above all, the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America -- a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it.

If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate any thing but liberty.

[limequat]

I've never experienced rule of law in my lifetime. Not sure what it looks like. For sure it has been dead for some time.

[timosman]

Adding the correct link to the first article: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/g...-politics.html

We have transformed into a country in which it’s difficult to imagine precisely what kind of official malfeasance would be met with more than a shrug of the shoulders.

[fisharmor]

Lucille: link doesn't lead to the article.

I've never experienced rule of law in my lifetime. Not sure what it looks like. For sure it has been dead for some time.

Exactly. This is just Demoblican / Republicrat bitching. Like stated in the pic thread - just two checks of the same butt.
Neither is particularly interested in the rule of law. The only political affiliation truly interested in the rule of law are the anarchists, because they are the only ones who place any importance on common law.

Any statutory legal system is immediately off the rule of law track. When some entity - whether it's a king, a military dictator, an oligarchy, a representative republic, or any single entity - is dictating statutes and calling it law, then law is not what is ruling. It is that entity which rules. Not law.

In order for law to rule, it cannot be dictated. It must be discovered. Those undertaking to have a society ruled by law must BEGIN THE PROCESS by understanding this - that there are immutable laws that exist outside of any particular state.

Common law systems have existed which understood this. But any statutory system begins its existence with a failure to understand this simple fact.

And we in America have lived under statutory systems since the beginning.

[Lucille]

I posted only the link to Claire's site because I want her to get the hits since she's awesome. The link is there. But thanks, guys.

[Working Poor]

Well it is about time for man's laws to die.